Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2018, Qupperneq 49

49The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2018
J A M I E S I TA L I A N . I S
Jamie ’ s I t a l i an , Hó te l Bo rg Pós thúss t ræt i 1 1 1 0 1 Reyk jav í k / S ÍM I : 5 78 2020
HÓTEL
BORG
and in the morning, we set out to
explore the other two. The sea-
son seems to be having an identity
crisis, with the weather cycling
quickly between bright sunshine,
violent hail, rain, and snowfall,
sometimes in the same minute.
We arrive in Tálknafjörður in
a bright moment. It’s a tiny, quiet
town with a modern church over-
looking the few rows of houses.
A recently-built self-service fish
shop still smells of sawdust and
hasn’t yet been stocked; just
behind, a seaside path has an
information board about local
wildlife. As I read about seals, ei-
der ducks and falcons, I realise
there’s not a sound to be heard
other than the rhythmic wash of
the tide, and the croaks, chirps
and trills of the manifold sea-
birds that line the shore.
The nearby forest behind the
town pool has a tempting path
leading up the hill and under
the tree canopy. As large, fluffy
snowflakes begin to fall, we take a
short hike into the tunnel of knot-
ty green branches. The trail leads
past hidden away picnic benches
and occasional viewpoints look-
ing out over the fjord, which is by
now barely visible now through a
sheet of slow-motion snowfall.
Puddle and pool
A few kilometres along the fjord’s
peninsula there’s a bathing spot
called Pollurinn, or “The Puddle.”
It turns out to be a set of three
well-kept concrete hotpots with
geothermal water piped in from
a nearby hot spring. After chang-
ing in the recently renovated
wooden changing room, I slide
into the silky water of the hot-
test pot. It feels about 43°C, and as
my car-cramped muscles slowly
relax, I watch the vast, textured
mountains appear and vanish
through fast-moving bands of
rain and sleet.
Over the next mountain pass
lies Bildudalur, a former mer-
chant town that’s now home to
200 or so people. The old store
has been repurposed to include
a bodega bar, with beer pumps by
the till and a backroom café serv-
ing plates of hot and steaming
fish ‘n’ chips. A nearby museum
dedicated to centuries of multi-
farious sea monster sightings in
Árnafjörður is still closed at the
tail end of the off-season, so we
decide to press on.
A glimpse of sun
We loop back towards Patreks-
fjörður via Reykjarfjarðarsund-
laug, a dreamlike bathing spot in
the middle of an obscure, almost
uninhabited fjord. It’s too tempt-
ing to ignore, and we spend a
blissful half hour swimming in
the lukewarm swimming pool and
basking in the nearby rock-lined
hot pot, overlooking the fjord in
the warm spring sunshine.
Even with a couple of days to
drive around, the trip feels too
short to fully explore the fjords
and villages of the southern West-
fjords. This sparsely populated
region feels like another Iceland,
and I’m left keenly aware of the
turnings not taken, and how
much more there is still to dis-
cover.
Westfjords: missing a memo about Spring
List of licenced Tour
Operators and Travel
Agencies on:
visiticeland.com
Licensing and
registration of travel-
related services
The Icelandic Tourist Board issues licences to tour operators and travel agents,
as well as issuing registration to booking services and information centres.
Tour operators and travel agents are required to use a special logo approved
by the Icelandic Tourist Board on all their advertisements and on their Internet
website.
Booking services and information centres are entitled to use a Tourist
Board logo on all their material. The logos below are recognised by the
Icelandic Tourist Board.
Make birdwatching great again